


Love Me Not

by theroguesgambit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Canon Divergent, Cursed Derek, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Soulmates, True Love's Kiss, canon compliant through 3b
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is seventeen years old when he discovers why everyone close to him dies.</p><p>True love's kiss can break any curse, but what do you do when your kiss is cursed to begin with?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [matildajones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/matildajones/gifts).



> Based off a beautiful concept given to me ages ago by the wonderfully talented [matildajones](http://matildajones.tumblr.com/). Hope you like it!
> 
> The story is more or less completed, so updates should be posted very quickly.

**I.**

_“True love,” Derek echoes, gaze scanning out across the hazy New York skyline. He’s been repeating it for hours, it feels like, uttering the words aloud whenever the sound of them in his mind starts feeling too loud. If the phrase had ever held any meaning for him beyond a convenient Disney plot device, if he’d ever had the slightest hope in his heart for happily ever afters, it has been long reduced to ash at this point, mixed in with the remains of his family and crushed under Kate Argent’s boot._

_And now here he is, seventeen years old and part of the most fucked up fairy tale he’s ever heard, staring out over a city crowded with eight million people and trying to make himself believe in true love._

_He lifts a hand idly to his lips, brushing his knuckles across them before holding it out, his gaze sliding over the unmarked skin._

_It’s the sickest sort of irony, salvation or death in a single act._

_He snorts, low and bitter, shifting his gaze back out to the sky._

_“True love.”_

_He hadn’t flinched at the idea of curses, but this?_

.-

“You are such an absolute dick, Derek. You realize that, right?” Stiles arches a brow like he’s awaiting a serious answer, and Derek barely resists the urge to mime throttling him. He isn’t that juvenile.

He lets his eyebrows speak his frustration instead, his tone remaining even while they arch, high and expectant.

“Saving your life makes me a dick now?”

“Thinking you _need_ to save my life makes you a dick. Dude, we had a plan. Carefully constructed, agreed upon by all parties ahead of time, I might add, and you ditching position to play Big Damn Hero because you think I can’t talk my way around some rando human street punks was _beyond_ unnecessary. And, frankly, a little insulting.”

Stiles is pacing now, body echoing his agitated tone as he moves back and forth along the long table, knuckles dragging and tapping on the surface as he speaks.

Derek watches him, arms crossed and unmoving.

“They were armed, Stiles, and they were planning on mugging you.”

“And Scott was planning on having backup against the omegas, but I guess we saw how that went.”

It had gone perfectly fine, actually, because Scott had managed to talk the omegas into leaving town without more than a few scratches’ worth of blood shed between them. He’s currently off escorting them to the border, probably exchanging tips on avoiding hunters, along with phone numbers and friendship bracelets, knowing Scott.

But apparently, in Stiles’ mind, the outcome isn’t important. He’s stuck worrying about what _might_ have happened, on how badly things might have gone. Which Derek completely understands.

He can’t stop thinking about what could have happened if Stiles had been left to face down a trio of knife-wielding muggers on his own. Human Stiles against human enemies, armed only with a pouch of ash and his sharp tongue.

As things stand, Stiles had come away from the attack with an ugly bruise to one cheek that will take days to heal from, and that’s just because Derek had been too slow to break the first mugger’s wrist.

If Derek hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t had one ear tuned in to where Stiles was set up outside a line of mountain ash spanning the alley exit…

“Hey, you just got super frowny there, man.” Stiles’ voice is softer suddenly as he paces to a stop in front of Derek, gaze going thoughtful behind the shadow of his blackened eye. “I’m the one that’s pissed at you, remember?”

It could have gone so much worse.

Stiles’ whole body jerks when Derek’s hand drifts up to brush along his cheek and rest there – a shocked jolt that bleeds into a continuing shiver as Derek’s veins blacken with the effort of pulling his pain. His eyes are wide in a way that must hurt, considering the bruises, flitting from Derek’s face down to his hand. Derek’s thumb ghosts across the tender skin under his eye, and Stiles’ voice comes out thin, breathy with nerves.

“This doesn’t make me less mad at you.”

“You’re not mad at me,” Derek counters, and he shouldn’t smile at the way Stiles’ eyes flash, the way his lips part with indignation but he doesn’t object.

Instead he just drifts in a little, changing the angle between them so that Derek’s entire palm is pressing into his cheek, fingers dragging into his hairline, and lets out a pleased hum before laughing.

“I guess it’s nice to know, objectively, that you don’t want me dead.”

“I never wanted you dead,” Derek counters. He aims for exasperated, winces as the words come out too soft, like a secret. Stiles blinks back at him, laughter dying, expression going vulnerable as his gaze flits all over Derek’s face.

“Yeah?”

It’s not a new thing between them, these moments. These barely tangible tugs of awareness that snap them from innocent bickering into a tension that slips under Derek’s skin like blackening veins. It’s there on Stiles’ suddenly heated cheek, in the too-meaningful way he lifts his hand to cradle Derek’s wrist. He swipes his thumb along the sensitive skin there as though he feels Derek’s quickening heartbeat, can pull the rising panic straight out of him.

Derek should move away. He shouldn’t have gotten this close to begin with.

“Hey,” Stiles says. “I don’t want you dead either.”

His slow-circling thumb is sending shivers straight into Derek’s core, his scent spiking in ways Derek wants to _bury_ himself in. His next breath comes out too sharp, and Stiles’ lips quirk, his eyes falling to Derek’s mouth.

Derek wrenches his hand away with too much force. Takes a fast step back while Stiles’ hand hangs in the air after him, and then another, tripping and nervous.

He feels sick.

“ _Don’t_.” It comes out harsh, too close to a snarl.

A warning.

For Stiles, for himself. For the twisted, lonely, selfish impulses that ache for him to let go, to give in, to let himself relax, for just a moment, into the comfort of another person’s touch.

Stiles’ expression cycles fast through confusion, hurt, frustration, before settling into stubbornness.

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

He’s lying through his teeth, but it still settles something in Derek. If he’s lying then he won’t push it. If he doesn’t push it then he’ll be safe.

“ _Good_ ,” Derek snaps, turning. “Keep it that way.”

He can smell Stiles’ hurt all the way back to the loft.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.  
Beginnings**

_Once upon a time, for that’s how these stories start, there lived a man known far and wide for his kindness and his beauty. He had dark hair and eyes that shone with a dozen different colors in sunlight, and when he loved, he loved with his whole heart._

_His house rested in the forested land at the border of town, a land teeming with magic and known to attract all sorts of enchanted creatures. Which worked out well for the man because his wife, her family, and their daughter were all wolves bonded to the cycles of the moon._

_Through little fault of his own, this man became the object of interest to a woman of great magic who had come on a pilgrimage to meditate under the sleeping tree at the heart of their land. This woman was as powerful as she was conceited, but there is no magic in the world that can best true love, and the man had been lucky enough to have found his in his wife. None of the enchantress’s spells or bribes could woo him from her._

_One day, after many weeks of conflict, the man went to the enchantress directly and asked her to leave._

_“You flatter me with your interest, but there’s nothing that you or anyone else could offer that would make me want to leave my family. I’ve devoted my life and my heart to my wife and our daughter, and when our son is born in two months’ time I will devote myself to him too. There is no way for you to win here, so please, go in peace.”_

_The enchantress, enraged at being denied her chosen prize, surged forward, her beautiful face twisting into something that matched her petty, jealous soul as she snarled at him._

_“You think your_ love _can protect you from my wrath? Know this: this unborn son you are so eager to welcome into the world? He will grow to mirror you in both likeness and spirit. He will love fast and strong and unflinchingly, and that love will destroy you and everyone he touches. You want to protect your beloved family? Drown the pup, or live long enough to see everything you love turn to ash.”_

_And then she was gone._

_The boy was born and christened after kings, and as the years went by and their family continued to grow, the man allowed himself to forget the enchantress’s spiteful words. After all, that’s all that they were, words, and his family was strong and secure and unshakably happy throughout any hardships._

_He believed nothing could shatter them._

_Sixteen years later, his house bright with flames all around him, he remembered her words again._

_.-_

Derek is sitting in a half-rusted jeep outside a hospital when he first thinks he could trust Stiles.

The boy is on the phone, talking with his father – lying to him, actually. Letting go of something they’d both wanted so badly, his chance at glory and getting the girl, without a second thought. There’s a warmth in Derek’s heart he hasn’t felt since Laura died.

And for the first time in the weeks he’s known him, Derek thinks he might need to earn this boy’s trust, and not the other way around. He wants to be someone Stiles can rely on, someone worthy of Stiles’ special brand of self-sacrificing loyalty.

He wants to be more than a monster in Stiles’ eyes, however little he might deserve it.

.-

_They’ve been settled in New York for three months when she comes to Derek’s door: slight and tan with copper-highlighted hair and wide-set green eyes. Derek hardly has a moment to wonder if she’s at the wrong apartment before she’s gasping, stumbling back into the far wall as though repelled by some unseen force._

_“Oh my god,” she breathes, staring at him like a sickness. “I sensed something on Laura, but it’s you. Death, fire, blood… it’s all coming from you.”_

.-

“Abomination” leaves Stiles’ lips, and Derek gets lost in the softness of his eyes.

He can’t remember the last time anyone’s looked at him like that. Gentle, understanding. Even his own reflection looks at him like he’s a monster.

He blinks away, back toward the school and where the kanima had stalked them: an abomination cursed to kill people against its will. He thinks about the pool where Stiles had risked his own life to hold Derek above water, where he could have so easily drowned.

The memory of Erica is a sick taste in his throat, and Derek wonders if maybe he should have.

.-

_The girl is a friend of Laura’s, it turns out: a classmate from university. She’s sitting on Derek’s couch now, gripping a mug of tea in slightly shaking hands and staring anywhere but directly at Derek._

_“I thought maybe she was sick or something,” she repeats. She’d said this three times already, words cycling, either unwilling or unsure of how to explain her panic back at the front door. “I could sense it when we hung out, threading through her. Death, impending. Definite. I thought maybe she was sick.”_

_“She’s not,” Derek cuts in, unquestioning. Laura can’t get sick in the way the girl – Andrea – is thinking. And then, more slowly: “You ‘sensed’ it?”_

_“I sense things,” she says, lifting one hand off the mug to wave dismissively. “Like I sense you both aren’t quite human. No big deal, there are more like you than you’d think, especially in a big city. I swear to god, the cashier at my local grocery is a vampire.”_

_“There aren’t vampires,” Derek replies, sounding more sure than he feels, needing to feel sure of something in the face of all the nonsense this stranger is throwing at him. She catches his eye, smirking like she knows it, before she shivers and looks away again._

_“You’ve got a_ bad _aura, Derek. Not like your sister’s, not like you’re sick. This is something you’d expect to see on serial killers.”_

_Derek goes still and she winces at her own words. Takes a sip of her tea as the air slowly settles._

_“I don’t think you’re a serial killer, Derek. I wouldn’t have come in here if I did.”_

_“Ok, so what do you think you’re…” he grimaces over the word again: “sensing?”_

_She sighs._

_“Derek, you have been seriously cursed.”_

_It comes out so simply he isn’t sure how to respond. He shifts on his feet, shakes his head, forces a laugh._

_“I’ve been_ seriously _cursed? What the hell does that mean?”_

_It’s not that he doesn’t believe in curses. Peter had dated a witch once, and his mother had spoken of the power of land magic, emissaries and druids._

_And he’s known for months that he had been a curse on his family, though he’d been thinking in a less traditional sense._

_His skin is crawling, his hands already clenching as Andrea sets down her mug and visibly steadies herself, before looking up to meet his gaze without the slightest hint of a flinch._

_“I mean that this isn’t some petty hex hanging off you. You have been cursed, and from the way it’s threaded through your aura, I’m betting it’s been there since you were a kid, maybe longer. I can help figure out what exactly it is, if you want, but it’s a part of you. There’s no scraping this off. I can’t imagine anything less than true love’s kiss managing that.”_

.-

Peter had said that true love conquers all, and Jackson stands wrapped in Lydia Martin’s arms as a testament to that claim.

The abomination cured of his curse by love, while his blood still drips from Derek’s claws.

Scott stands beside his Argent, the one who wouldn’t betray him, while Jackson grips his girl tighter, breathing relieved, half-choked sobs into her hair.

His salvation, his soulmate, his anchor.

Gerard’s on the ground, choking on mountain ash poisoning his blood, and Derek has never felt such kinship to a hunter as he does in this moment.

Stiles stands off to one side, face half-shadowed with ugly bruises, blinking slow tears from his eyes. Derek lets his gaze catch there, for just a moment: transfixed by the grimace, the visible ache from his wounds. He watches Stiles’ steady resolve to keep going despite his misery.

And he tries to remember why he’s still standing.

.-

 _“Don’t say that,” Laura snarls, gripping his arm and spinning him back toward her. “Don’t fucking_ think _it, Derek.”_

_Her eyes are glowing crimson and Derek’s instincts whimper to bow, agree, beg forgiveness for everything he’s done to inspire her wrath. But his sins run so deep his veins are aching with it and there’s no way to scrape him clean._

_“Why not? I killed our_ family _, Laur. I killed Paige. I’ve killed you and we don’t even know… we have no idea when…” His next breath comes out ragged and he stumbles into her arms before he registers her tug. He collapses into her embrace, not hugging back, flinching at the gentle shushes, jumps against each kiss she presses into his temple._

_“I don’t believe it,” Laura says, firm against her fluttering heartbeat. “Andrea never should have said something like that to you, it’s sick.”_

_Derek laughs, hears the touch of hysteria in it, and buries the sound against his own hand._

_He’s known he’d killed them for months; that’s nothing new. He’d known he was responsible. He just hadn’t known how._

_“I wish it worked on me too,” he says instead, words muffled by the press of palm against his lips. Laura sighs, tugs the hand gently from his mouth so she can look into his face properly._

_“Listen to me. We don’t know what’s going to happen, Derek, or when. Nobody knows that. But I know one thing: this isn’t something you’ve done to us. Ok? This is something that has_ been _done_ to _us. And we both owe it to our family to keep going. Promise me you will, Derek. No matter what. You’ll keep going until you can’t anymore, Derek, you promise me.”_

.-

“Scott told me what he did.”

Derek lets his gaze slide, brows lifting, from the length of heavy chain he’s re-coiling: the remnants of a full moon with his betas, the last one before two of them fled.

Stiles is standing at the entrance to the train car, after having spent nearly five minutes pacing out in the main room.

“His big master plan,” he continues, sarcasm spiking his tone, and jumps when Derek snorts and drops the chain to the nearest seat. One end swings loosely off the edge, and they both watch as it starts to slide, clattering loudly as it tumbles to a heap on the floor.

“Wasn’t a bad plan,” Derek says amidst the echoes of the rattle. “It stopped Gerard.”

“It was shitty.”

Stiles sounds grudging, but earnest. Derek narrows his eyes, taking in Stiles’ anxious stance, the determined set of his jaw.

“I’ve had worse done to me, Stiles. I’ve _done_ worse.”

“What, and that means it’s ok for more bad things to happen to you? That’s such screwed up logic I don’t know where to start.”

He sounds sure, like he has any idea what he’s talking about. Like he has a clue what Derek’s done or what he deserves for it.

There’s a neat stack of t-shirts sitting off on one of the other benches. Boyd’s. He’d always been neat, careful with his space as though not sure how much attention he was willing to draw. The remnants of Erica are scattered more obviously around the rail yard, and Derek flinches every time he stumbles across one of them.

He blinks away from the shirts, feigning disinterest with an eye roll.

“So you’re, what? Here to play messenger for Scott? Send his apologies?”

Stiles snorts, crosses into the car far enough to toe at the chain. His hands are buried deep in the pockets of his hoodie, purpled bruises still darkening his face.

“Honestly?” he says, tone too tight for the casual air he’s putting on. “I don’t think Scott’s thinking much about you at all right now. Mr. Argent’s taking Allison off to France, and that’s kind of priority numero uno. And his grades have kind of gone to shit, what with the fighting evil and protecting the town, and he and his mom are still seriously eh over the whole tooth and claw reveal. I think he’d get it was a shitty thing if he stopped to think about it, but I don’t think he’s planning on thinking about it any time soon.”

He skates his gaze up to scan Derek’s face. Derek feels his frown deepen.

“So you’re here because?” he repeats.

Stiles makes an exaggerated grimace, then winces as it stretches the skin of his bruise. Derek almost smirks back at him but then Stiles is saying, tone some impossible mix of incredulity and understanding:

“Because _it was shitty_.” Like it could just be that simple. “And I figured you deserved to hear someone else say that.”

And as much as Derek understands that Stiles is his own person, completely capable of having his own thoughts and opinions, it still feels like a shock to realize that Stiles has thoughts and opinions about _Derek_ , completely independent of Scott’s.

Anyway, it’s ridiculous, because Derek has been through worse. He has many times, and for much less reason. Five minutes of being immobilized to help defeat the enemy shouldn’t be _anything_.

Shouldn’t be sticking with him like a weeklong shudder trapped under his skin.

_Powerless, unable to flinch or fight as his mouth was pressed to someone else’s skin._

Not the same thing – teeth and not lips, the intention all wrong. Still, though.

Still.

Derek steps forward, and Stiles doesn’t tense like he used to at Derek’s approach, doesn’t move at all until Derek’s lifting his hand to brush across Stiles’ bruised cheekbone, and then he flails hard, hands lifting to bat at it.

“Hey, personal space?”

He skates away from Derek, nearly tripping over an edge of chain and squawking indignance when Derek catches his nape in a firm grip, stilling him.

“ _Oh my god_ , don’t kill me. Next time I’ll let you brood in peace, dude, no manly empathizing--” He cuts off with a breathy “ _oh_ ” as Derek’s free hand finds his cheek, his eyes slipping shut and then blinking wide, flicking all over Derek’s face as he begins to pull Stiles' pain. “Oh wow, that’s really… we need to find a way to bottle that, dude. Because I could use that probably four times a week after lacrosse practice.”

Derek lets his thumb trail down Stiles’ cheek toward his split lip, skirting the edge and away fast as Stiles’ mouth falls open on a sharp inhale.

He drops his hand to his side, feels the chain rattle against his heel as he takes a fast a step back.

“Whoever did that to you—“

“Dead,” Stiles cuts in, a pained smile twitching across his lips. “Or coughing up black blood in a hole somewhere.”

The long-trapped shudder dissipates in a rush of strange warmth that flutters through Derek’s chest before fading.

“Then what Scott did was worth it.”

A faint flush colors Stiles’ cheeks and he looks down, biting his lip over a smile. It isn’t until he glances up through his lashes and Derek’s heart _thumps_ that he remembers to be afraid.


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

Derek wakes from a dream of kissing across planes of pale skin and leaving melted flesh in his wake.

It’s barely dawn, and he pulls the covers over his head – a monster hiding for the safety of the sheep – and makes himself count, one by one, all the lives his love has taken.

.-

_The first girl Derek ever kissed died in his arms a month later. If he had been asked then, he would have blamed himself for what happened. His stupidity, his own blood-darkened claws._

_It would never have occurred to him, back then, to blame a curse._

.-

“Look, we should just make out.”

The peace had lasted all of two weeks… if an intervention on a cult of confused teenagers looking to summon the devil could be considered peaceful. But now the rest have cleared out except for Stiles, lingering against the door of his jeep and not even trying to hide his nerves. His bottom lip is bitten red, hands stuffed down deep into his pockets. His eyes, though, are on Derek. Careful, gauging his reaction.

Derek swallows down the desperate panic that makes him want to run. Huffs out a breath of practiced incredulity and forces himself to hold Stiles’ gaze, a clear challenge, as he says “Why the hell should we do that?”

Maybe Stiles had expected an outright denial, or even for Derek to sweep forward and straight into Stiles’ arms. Either way the biting inquiry seems to throw him.

Derek shakes his head, digs out his own keys, glad and strangely bitter at the once again easy deflection.

He almost gets his door open before Stiles answers.

“Stress relief. Clearing up all this, you know, weird tension going on. I mean, I’d offer to take you out to dinner or something but I’m not really sure if you’re the dinnering type. Or if this is a dinnering thing. So I just figured, you know, making out’s maybe the safer bet.”

Stiles’ brows furrow when Derek laughs, long and bitter. Derek jerks the car door open, feels the handle crunch slightly under his fist.

“The last thing I want to do is kiss you, Stiles.”

.-

_If Derek had been thinking straight, he would have never kissed Jennifer Blake. If there hadn’t been magic working its way into his veins, sweet and easy as it stripped down his defenses, his resistance, his common sense, and leaving nothing behind but raw want and trust and years’ long loneliness aching to be sated in another person’s skin._

_He never would have kissed her if his mind had been his own._

_He can’t bring himself to feel too guilty when they discover her ruined corpse._

.-

“A date, then.”

Derek’s eyes squeeze shut, weary, before he turns around. Anyone else would have given up by now, but either Stiles has a masochistic streak he’s using Derek to indulge in, or he’s more sure of himself than he should be. Derek isn’t sure which would be worse.

“What?” He asks, as though he hadn’t heard.

Hold his gaze, brows raised skeptically. Force him to repeat himself. Anyone sane would back down. It’s a tactic that’s worked a hundred times, on a hundred men and women over the years.

Stiles licks his lips, pushes himself in through the doorway.

“You said you wouldn’t want to kiss me, but you didn’t say no to a date.”

Of course Stiles would go looking for loopholes. That’s just who he is. He doesn’t give up, doesn’t accept answers as absolutes.

He’s infuriating: too clever and doggedly determined when he sets his mind to something. And Derek is probably more than halfway in love with him.

And it’s also exactly why Derek needs to deal with him this way. If Stiles knew the truth then he’d look for a way to fix it. He’d believe he could find a way out, and he’d put himself at risk doing it.

Derek can’t handle any more blood on his hands.

“Dating leads to kissing, Stiles.” He keeps his voice hard. No room to argue.

Except Stiles grins at him, bold past his nerves, and winks.

“Oh, and I was thinking we could just go straight from dinner to mutual blowjobs.”

Derek stills, mind stuttering over the words. He swallows.

“I’m not interested.”

“I don’t believe you.”

His first year at college has made Stiles brave: bold and confident in a way he wouldn’t have been back in high school.  Derek wishes it hadn’t, wishes he knew how to say no in a way Stiles could believe. Wishes he could take back whatever tells in his own body are making Stiles so sure he’s right about this.

“Look, it’s just… I know you’re into me. _Everyone_ knows you’re into me, ok? Even Scott’s been asking when we’re just gonna get together already, and you know that once Scott notices something it’s probably visible from space. So I’m just… can we just do dinner? See if it leads to anything? And if you decide you still hate me afterward—“

“I don’t hate you,” Derek says without thinking. He wishes he could take it back a second later, when Stiles’ eyes light up and he steps forward, biting over a smile.

“Oh yeah, that’s right. So that’s something, huh? Non-hate. Top billboard hits have been written over less.”

Derek laughs before he can stop himself, and Stiles’ scent goes sweet as he beams back, bright and fond.

“Oh man, you laughed. You like me so much.”

Stiles is beautiful, his smile softening as the laughter dies on Derek’s lips. His chest _clenches_ at how beautiful he is, how much he wants this. Just this, being with Stiles, getting lost in each others’ eyes.

“So,” Stiles says, sounding breathless. Hopeful. “Date me?”

It shatters the moment, all the implications rising sickly up. He sees Stiles’ face falling before he even looks away.

.-

_Erica’s mouth catches him by surprise – all wet heat and eagerness, and the thrilling spike of victory in her scent._

_And Derek had been so right in choosing her, so right and so unbearably wrong, because she’s unpredictable and more clever than he’d guessed… and she had just signed her own death warrant without knowing it._

_And for one sweet, terrible second Derek lets himself surrender to the contact, to kiss back because he hasn’t kissed anyone since he was sixteen years old, and it is just_ good _to be against someone like this, to feel the hunger spike in her scent and warm pressure against his mouth._

_They should let themselves enjoy this, for just a moment._

_It’s too late for her now, anyway._

_He pushes her off the instant the thought really hits him, hating himself for it. For letting himself indulge like that, letting himself feel good for even a second when he has just killed this girl._

_It might be a month, might be six years, but someday Erica will die bloody and miserable for the mistake of using the wrong tactic, of nursing the wrong crush._

_She’s dead already, even if she didn’t realize it._

.-

“I can’t,” Derek breathes to the empty loft.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed that I had this tagged but hadn't mentioned it in my notes anywhere, so I just want to say that yes, this is canon-compliant but only through 3B (technically through 3B minus Kate's return, because I don't want to deal with any of the s4 arc in this story). Braeden will not be mentioned or explained in the list of people Derek's kissed, and we can all just happily pretend none of that happened for the purposes of this fic.
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback so far <3

**IV.**

Stiles is different the next time they see each other, polite in a way that only accentuates the hollow spaces where secret smiles and innuendo used to creep through.

Derek could have convinced himself that was a good thing if Stiles would just argue with him. He could take the lack of flirtation, the absence of almost-moments (should be _grateful_ for them, honestly) but losing Stiles’ sarcastic jibes, his back-talk, his rolled eyes and dramatically thrown up hands when Derek makes what he decides is a particularly uninspired argument? The way he pushes Derek in every instance to think faster, be _better_ …

Stiles seems to be expecting it when Derek catches his arm as everyone’s leaving. He doesn’t pull away, just pushes his keys back into his pocket, nods Scott on, and turns toward Derek with a coolly expectant look.

“We can’t be like this,” Derek tries, reasonably, because they _can’t_. There’s no way for the pack to function with the two of them acting like polite strangers.

Stiles’ gaze cuts into him, then away.

“I tried to be a different way, and that didn’t exactly go over well.”

The words sting, and Derek lets his hand drop.

“So that’s it? That’s where we are now? I agree to date you or you ignore me?”

“ _No_.” The reply comes back fast, indignant enough that Derek can believe it past all of his own swelling doubts, the insistence of _all or nothing_ stuck on repeat in his own mind. Then Stiles shuffles in a careful step, fists into Derek’s shirt and adds: “But you need to be honest with me. Look, if you weren’t that would be fine, and I’d deal, but I _know_ you’re into me. And you’ve got plenty of cause for trust issues, I get that, and I’m not trying to—“

“I trust you” falls from Derek’s mouth before he can check it. He swallows too late, can’t bring himself to regret the words. Because he does. It felt like hell sometimes getting here, but he trusts Stiles. And that’s important, that’s everything.

They’ve had that for too long to risk losing now.

Stiles’ eyes go bright in a way they haven’t been all day, and Derek feels something coil through him, sweet and pleased and streaked through with sheer panic.

“Ok,” Stiles is saying soft, grinning. His hand is wrapped in the hem of Derek’s shirt like he never wants to let go, and Derek wants to sink in against him because he hadn’t realized how much a single day of Stiles’ pointed disinterest would feel like his world slipping away from him. “Ok, so you want me and you trust me, so let’s try this.”

It takes too long for the wrong in the words to register, too caught up in the pressure of Stiles’ hand, warm and soothing as it slides up to rest lightly against his chest, In the way his scent is spiking so sweet with fondness and his heart is pattering a fast, familiar rhythm of _want_... and it isn’t until Stiles starts to lean in that what he’s said sinks in fully and Derek _flinches_ , something lurching sickly inside him.

“I can’t.”

It had been stupid to indulge this, even for a second. Stupid and selfish, and so unbelievably dangerous.

He tugs back out of Stiles’ suddenly loose grip, tries not to notice the way Stiles’ eyes fight and fail to go flat.

“Right.” His voice succeeds where his eyes don’t, sounding hollow. “Obviously. Because I’m good enough to flirt with but not actually touch, right?” His feet scrape half a step forward, then decisively away. “That’s so… that’s such bullshit, Derek. What, you want me until you remember I’m not good enough or something?”

“What? _No_.”

“Then what?” There’s emotion back in Stiles’ voice now: spiteful, bitter grates of sound that skate inward as much as they do out, making Stiles shrink as he speaks them. It leaves Derek wishing to go back to the ugly blankness. “Because you’re not giving me anything to go on here, and all I can come up with is that I’ve been completely deluding myself by thinking there’s something here, or you’re trying to pretend there’s nothing here. And let me tell you, neither option’s all that flattering.”

“Stiles…”

“This has been _years_ , Derek. We’ve been dancing around this for years and I’ve always thought, I don’t know. Maybe when we’re older, when things are a little more settled, we could try to be something.”

It’s all Derek wants.

His eyes slide.

“I’m sorry if I led you on.”

Stiles’ breath hitches, a harsh laugh rushing out.

“Oh, fuck you. Fine. I guess I haven’t earned a straight answer, right? Not like we’re friends, or I’ve saved your ass a dozen times this year alone, or we _actually_ trust each other.”

Derek doesn’t let himself flinch this time, the words battering against him like blows. Stiles’ eyes have taken on a wet sheen and he’s blinking too fast, teeth gritting like he’s trying to physically will the tears away.

“I do—“

“Don’t, ok? If you did, you’d give me more than this. More than eye-fucking me one minute and acting like I’m some delusional kid with a crush the next.”

 _You aren’t_ fights to slip out, and Derek bites down against the impulse. The smart thing to do would be to leave things like this. Let Stiles feel hurt, let him think Derek’s just that cruel and move on, hating him.

But self-loathing is spiking into Stiles’ scent, a wound every bit as deep as any blow an enemy’s ever given him. Derek’s aching to pull the feeling from him, and when Stiles turns away, shoulders hunching, voice breaking over “Ok, look I tried man. I’m fucking done” Derek can’t leave it like this.

He’s never told anyone outside family. Never wanted to tell anyone, but Stiles is hurting and Derek can’t leave them like this, not after everything. He can’t lose the one thing that he thinks might mean everything.

“ _Stiles_ ” he hisses, and Stiles is already spinning back toward him, eyes damp and seething anger. And then he’s pressing in toward Derek like this is some dramatic scene in a romance novel, like he wants to just _batter_ Derek’s face with his mouth. Derek turns his head sharply, lets Stiles’ lips skim his jaw, shudders out _panic want terror_ and fights every instinct screaming for him to run.

“Stiles, if I kiss you, you’ll die.”

.-

_“Oh, that is twisted,” Andrea breathes, sheer horror and something like awe bleeding into her tone. Her hand skates through the air just past his cheek, down to hover over his chest, and then, slowly, back up. “Whoever did this has a seriously sick sense of humor.”_

_“Nothing about this is funny,’ Derek grits back. It’s been five days since Andrea had first come to him, long enough for him to push through knee-jerk doubt and denial, for Laura to confirm that she knew the other girl, for Derek to wonder if it was self-indulgent to let himself believe, even for an instant, that his destructive mistakes and all the losses that came from them could all be blamed on a curse._

_In the end, he had needed to know._

_And now she’s kneeling in front of him, the warm glow from her palms and the hazy film over her eyes negating any lingering suspicions he’d had of this all being a scam._

_“Yeah,” she replies, dropping her hands to scrub over her thighs, the light fading. “Not if you’re sane.”_

_He waits for her to go on, but she just keeps staring down at her hands. Derek watches the film of her eyes fade back into green, licks his lips absently._

_“So you said true love’s kiss will break it, right? Whatever this curse is, whatever’s got Laura. So if I just… what, go around kissing everyone I see, eventually—“_

_“No!”_

_She has Derek’s arm in vice grip, fast and desperate, and Derek startles. It’s the first time she’s touched him._

_“Don’t do that Derek, ever. That’s how it spreads.”_

_“What do you mean? You said kissing,“ as ridiculous as that seemed, “would cure it. Would break the spell.”_

_“True love’s kiss,” she stresses. “That’s why this is so twisted, Derek. That’s the curse. If you kiss anyone else, in any way, passionate, a polite peck on the cheek… they’ll die. It might take a few days, might take years, no way to tell with magic this unstable. But it’ll happen, and it’ll be ugly.”_

_He jerks away and she lets him go, rising up as he stands, paces a step away, needing distance._

_“The rest of your family’s already gone, right?” she asks, not unkindly, and he hates her for it. Hates her for acting like any tone could spare him pain in this moment. As though he would_ deserve _that. “And the poison’s already in Laura, and I don’t know who else. Has anyone else died? Anyone you’ve kissed?”_

_“Shut up.”_

_He’s breathing sharp, Paige pale and bloody in his mind’s eye. Every kiss to his mother’s cheek, his father’s beard, his little cousins all burnt down to ash._

_She has his arm again and he realizes his legs are going out under him._

_Not just proximity, not anything he couldn’t help. This is Kate all over again, worse. Every sweet, silly, or loving press of his lips in his whole life used against him. Against the people he’d meant to dole affection on._

_Turning him into a weapon._

_“How do we stop it? We need to stop it.”_

_He can see the answer in her eyes before she says anything: the pained pinch, the regret, the pity spilling off her scent._

_“We can’t. Not unless you’re willing to risk someone else, Derek. I’m sorry.”_

_.-_

“This is some serious Grimm fairytale bullshit right here, Derek.”

Stiles says it through his hands, clasped together, thumbs pressed, seemingly unconscious, against his mouth. He hadn’t said a word while Derek struggled through speaking, watching from the couch with eyes that went from skeptical to soft and back.

“I was expecting like… relationship issues, you know? You having sworn off dating forever, or maybe having some kind of big gay crisis. This is…”

“I know.”

Stiles is staring around the room, knee bouncing erratically.

“Are you _sure_? I mean… you’ve had some crazy bad luck, Derek, no denying. I might start thinking I was cursed too.”

“It’s true.”

Stiles nods, quick and absent, and Derek can see his eyes already distant, darting from one line of inquiry and another. Following the trail of Derek’s story, poking for holes. It barely takes a second for him to land on:

“Right, but everyone you’ve lost, they didn’t just drop dead. They’ve been _killed_. There was premeditation and planning that went into it. I don’t think we can just ignore all that and say that a curse did it. So maybe it’s not—“

“ _Stiles_.” He cuts off, eyes skittering back to land on Derek. They’re wide, half-wild with shock and denial, and Derek feels an echo of a years’ long ache in his expression. Forces his tone to stay even, understanding as he repeats gently, “It’s true. I’m not saying bad things don’t happen on their own. We’ve lost people that have nothing to do with this.”

 _Boyd_ burns bright in his mind, threaded through with guilt so similar and so disconnected from that burned into him by his curse. No fate had decreed Boyd’s death beyond Deucalion’s whim and Derek’s own failure to fight back enough. Derek has never been able to decide which feels worse.

“And maybe,” he forces himself to continue, “some of the same things would’ve happened without it. But without this curse, Laura might have beaten Peter. My family could have found a way out. The bite wouldn’t have killed—“ He breaks off, head shaking. “Stiles, this is real. That’s why I can’t—”

“ _How_ , though?” Stiles’ hand flies up, the gesture wild and comfortingly familiar. “I mean, what? Your parents forget to invite all the fairies to your baby shower, and one of them held a grudge?”

A smile quirks Derek’s lips, and he ducks his head against it.

“I’ve stopped wondering.”

“No you haven’t.”Stiles’ voice is softer now, and the sound of it has Derek lifting a hand to his lips, brushing across them idly.

“No I haven’t. But there’s no point. It is what it is.”

When he looks back up, Stiles is watching him carefully.

“I’ve seen you do that,” he says, and when Derek lifts his brows Stiles echoes the motion of his hand, brushing his fingers over his lips. Derek’s eyes catch over the easy way his fingers move, captivating without even trying as they trace over barely parted lips.

A bitter twist pulls at Derek’s gut, the memory of too many times kissing into his own skin, wishing he could feel some sign, some hint of the poison lurking in his own touch.

He drops his hand, shrugging.

“Only one who can, right?”

Stiles watches his mouth for a stretching moment, before blinking away.

“So, how about that date?”

Derek huffs out a surprised laugh.

“Right.”

“I’m serious.” Stiles’ leg has finally stopped bouncing. His hand is still hovering up near his mouth, like an invitation or some involuntary attempt at a barrier. But his heart beats on steady as he quirks a grin Derek’s way. “What, you still pretending you’re not interested?”

“You pretending the last half hour never happened?”

His own heart’s beating too fast, a frantic staccato against Stiles’ even rhythm. He fights the urge to lift his hand again, brush over his lip, cover his own mouth as Stiles lowers his own, standing and tilting his head, still smirking.

“I’m not pretending anything. Maybe in hindsight the whole ‘let’s make out’ suggestion wasn’t the best idea. But I want to be with you, and I think you do too.”

“I want you _alive_.”

Stiles’ heart flutters audibly at that, pupils blowing out. And then he’s laughing to cover it, scrubbing at his neck like it had been the most flattering of confessions and not just common decency.

(It hadn’t been decency. Hadn’t even been close. Derek isn’t sure he’s had a decent thought about Stiles in years, since the decent thing to do would be to want Stiles far away and safe, happily wrapped in someone else’s arms and—)

“And hey, I’m all for not being dead, trust me.”

He’s close now, somehow, and Derek hasn’t thought to move away. Doesn’t move when Stiles reaches out and catches his hand, threading his fingers through Derek’s and pressing them palm to palm.

“We don’t have to kiss, though. We don’t have to worry about that yet, but just… you want to be with me, right?”

He should say no. He should lie his way out of this, even if it’s obvious, because this is such a slippery slope to start down. Because Stiles isn’t one to accept things halfway, to believe that there’s a problem he can’t think his way out of.

Because he has already said “yet” and Derek can practically see the “but you love me, right?” etched under every one of Stiles’ words. It’s too much, too dangerous.

But Stiles’ palm is a sweet comfort, pressed against Derek’s own, and it’s been years since Derek has allowed himself anything beyond the briefest, most basic human contact.

If Derek could have anything in the world right now, he thinks he would want Stiles, and he can’t force himself to say no again.

“What would that mean?” He says instead, hating the way his voice has gone gravel against his nerves. Stiles can probably feel the tremors quaking through him, and somehow manages to soothe the worst of it away with the barest drag of his thumb along Derek’s hand.

“It means we’d _be together_ ,” he answers, tone all sweet and coaxing. “You buy me dinner, maybe take me to the movies. I’ll keep a picture of you on my nightstand and call you my boo in front of Scott because he is seriously the grossest, mushiest oversharer and needs to be taught a lesson like three years ago.”

“I’m not sure I’m getting much out of this deal,” Derek notes. He’s fighting not to react to the way his whole chest has taken up fluttering: a dueling panic flightinstinct and a want so deep it has him clutching at Stiles’ hand like that will keep Stiles from letting Derek let go.

“Oh, silly me,” Stiles says. “Well, how about—”

He’s smiling openly again, soft and bright and so pleased, and honestly he doesn’t even need to say anything because that smile directed at Derek is everything he needs to have him lifting his free hand, brushing it over Stiles’ cheek and saying:

“Ok. You’re completely insane, but let’s try this.”

Stiles’ reaction is immediate, serotonin spiking his scent in a way that leaves Derek breathing deeper, swaying closer just to get a taste of it off the air. And then Stiles’ free arm is around Derek’s waist and he’s pressed against him all over, wrapping him in a fierce hug.

“Really? Oh my god, _yes_ , this is awesome. I totally wooed you. I’m so damn sexy and you know it.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Derek counters feebly. His hand is too tight in Stiles’ still, the other clutching at his waist, frozen against the initial instinct to _shove_. Stiles’ bare throat is inches from his mouth and he turns his head the other way, tries to act like this is normal. He can handle this.

 _God_ , he wants this.

Stiles laughs, breath huffing against his ear, and a hot coil curls low in his belly.

“I’m kind of in love with you, man. Did you seriously think a little curse would make me walk away?”

No, Derek thinks. He’d known it probably wouldn’t. That’s why he hadn’t wanted to say it. But curled against Stiles now, his free arm creeping slowly to wrap around his waist as he lets himself sink into the soothing embrace, he can’t begin to remember why being alone had sounded like a better plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a happy resolution, right?
> 
> Well you've all got to know it can't end that easy.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

_“What’s happening to me?”_

_Cora gazes up at him, pale and vulnerable, from the hospital bed. She looks so much like the little sister Derek had lost and it hits him all over again, like it has a thousand times since he’d discovered her snarling in that bank vault, that he has been allowed the chance to see her again just to watch her wither in front of him._

_The curse?_

_The universe’s twisted sense of justice?_

_“I don’t know.”_

_This is his fault, either way. Whether it’s the curse finally coming for Cora or just Jennifer and the more mundane curse of Derek’s poor judgment._

_He’s had too much time to think, in the days since he found her. Spent hours trying to piece together their history in a way that wouldn’t leave him burying another sister. He wants so desperately to believe this isn’t the start of another end._

_She’d survived all this time, after all. Outlived even Laura and (technically) Peter._

_So maybe the curse just hasn’t caught up to her yet. Maybe her time is still coming, but just maybe…_

_He’d been barely six years old when Cora was born, just young enough to be bitter over losing his position as youngest child. He remembers frowning down at her crib, grimacing when his father had asked if he wanted to hold her. Girls were gross, Derek had decided, with all the surety of a second-youngest child._

_Saying so had always set Peter laughing, ruffling his hair and reaching out for a high five._

_“You might feel differently in a few years,” he liked to add, which made Derek grimace because Peter sometimes ditched family time to go see girls, and that had more or less seemed to prove Derek’s every prejudice against them._

_His jealousy hadn’t lasted long in the grand scheme of things, his mother quelling his concerns about his lost place in the family with words like “responsibility” and “helper” and “my big boy” that settled, warm and pleased, inside him. But Derek had come away from it all confident that he’d moved beyond public displays of affection. If he wasn’t allowed to be his mother’s youngest anymore, he would have to be a big kid. And big kids didn’t go around kissing babies._

_They’d been as close as could be expected growing up, considering their six year age difference and Derek’s growing determination to be cool in the eyes of Peter and his older cousins. He’d been too old to play or watch the same things she was into, and not old enough to really look after her. He’d never been the first to run and comfort her when she was upset; that had always been Laura’s place. He’d never been the one she ran to for praise when she learned something new or sat with her when she couldn’t fall asleep._

_And in the end, Derek has begun to convince himself over the past days, that might have actually saved her._

_There’s no way to be sure, no way to count back over every moment of their ten years together… but he has to believe it. He has to believe something. He can’t handle the thought of losing her._

_“But I’m not leaving,” he says, and watches the way her lip fights not to tremble, hope and fear hanging heavy in her eyes. His little sister. And maybe he’d never been the best brother to her, but in this moment he knows he will do whatever it takes to save her. Whether it’s Jennifer’s magic or the curse itself coming for her, he_ will _beat this. He’s not losing anyone else. “Not again.”_

_He leans in slow, presses his lips carefully to the bandage over her forehead. An apology for every time he hasn’t been there for her, a prayer with every fiber of his being that his lips have never touched her skin._

_And after this, he thinks, he will leave her. He’s not willing to lose her, even if that means letting her go. Even if that means lying to her now._

_He’s better off alone._

_And everyone else is better without him._

_.-_

Derek hadn’t known it was possible to feel like this. To need someone even when you already have them, to miss them when they’re already there.

It’s like his entire world settles and sets on edge from the moment Stiles pulls him into that first embrace, and it keeps right on resettling again every time they see each other after that. Every time Stiles bites over an impossibly fond smile or leans into him, threading their fingers together casually, like it’s already a habit. It takes weeks for Derek to realize he’s still half-expecting Stiles to run, half expecting Stiles' common sense to kick in and his phone to light up with a message saying that this is all a mistake; that Stiles needs so much more than Derek can give him. That he has an _ounce_ of self-preservation instinct in him and has realized how much smarter it would be to run.

He’s existing in a constant, buzzing rush of half-hope and half-dread, and he can’t even tell which emotion goes with which thought.

It finally hits him for no reason at all on a Wednesday. Stiles has stopped by the loft after class the way he has a hundred times, even long before they were dating, for no other reason than to spend time in Derek’s presence. He lets himself in with the key he’s had for years and immediately fills up the space like it’s his own, shedding shoes, bag and keys across every available surface. He’s halfway out of his hoodie before he notices Derek staring.

He freezes, one arm hanging free with the zipper still halfway undone, and lifts his brows.

“Um… sorry. Should I have knocked?”

“You’re here,” Derek answers dumbly. It’s so much more important than that, more than his clumsy words make it sound. Because Stiles is here, and he’s not planning on leaving, and the deep, settling feeling in Derek’s chest is _relief_.

It might be selfish to be glad Stiles is here, filling up his space with his sound and scent and clutter. It might be better to wish he would come to his senses and run… but Derek doesn’t want to. He wants to be happy, and it’s the most ridiculous realization in the world. If he voices it Stiles will probably implode with the pressure of too many “brooding werewolf” jokes to handle, but Derek can’t help thrilling at the thought, ducking his head against the grin that splits over his face, because _he actually wants to be happy_.

When Derek looks back up, though, Stiles seems like maybe he gets it, the way he always somehow seems to get it. The way he’s probably understood what Derek’s been feeling for weeks.

He’s standing there, half-hanging out of his stupid hoodie and looking at Derek like _he’s_ the lovable idiot.

“Finally caught onto that, huh?”

Derek crosses the room in cautious steps, the whole space feeling new and different against his skin. He closes his hands gently over Stiles’ own, and wiggles the zipper, working it free from the bit of cloth it’s gotten caught on and tugging it slowly down.

“Never knock,” he tells Stiles’ chest firmly, and Stiles spreads his fingers, letting Derek’s sink down between them.

.-

A displaced water demon tosses Stiles into a churning lake, and by the time Derek drags him to the surface his lips are tinged blue from not breathing.

Derek crouches over his limp form, staring down at his mouth, lost in a panicked whorl of lips and curses, and how Stiles could die now without them ever kissing, or how he could lean in and Stiles could live now only to die worse later.

Then Scott’s there, shoving Derek aside, and sets Stiles coughing back to life with a few well-aimed shoves to the chest.

Derek pushes himself to his feet, stumbles away while the group crowds in around him, but then Stiles is saying his name, eyes darting around, red-rimmed and bleary. He grins, too bright and dizzy, when he finds him, and stretches out a hand toward Derek.

“So almost drowning’s kind of our thing, huh? I vote we come up with a new thing.”

The group parts for him to make his way back to Stiles’ side, like it’s natural for him to be there, and he huffs out a disapproving sound, crouching back down to thread his fingers into Stiles’ weary grasp.

“How about you not rushing in like an idiot and nearly getting killed,” he says, gathering Stiles carefully into his arms. “That can be our thing.”

“Hypocrite,” Stiles grumbles into his collar, and Derek smiles.

.-

“Hey, trust me, ok?”

Derek does, and so he doesn’t move away even though his instincts scream to. Even though every muscle in his body goes tense with the sheer effort of _not_ bolting.

Stiles is leaning in slow, hand light against Derek’s collar. His eyes are on Derek’s mouth and for an instant the entire world reduces down to Stiles’ eyes and Stiles’ mouth and the hitched breath that flutters soft against Derek’s lips.

“Stiles…”

“No, shh, it’s ok.”

It feels like the start of a familiar nightmare. They _can’t_ , and Derek doesn’t know how to handle this, but Stiles said to trust him and Derek holds himself still.

“Just let me…” And then Stiles’ mouth is disappearing from view as he leans right past Derek. As he ducks in toward Derek’s ear instead and, _very_ gently, lets their cheeks brush.

“ _Oh_ ” rushes from Derek in a long breath, and he feels Stiles smile against his skin. His hands are fists at his sides but he doesn’t pull away as Stiles turns his head to brush his nose along Derek’s cheek, nuzzle in, breathing hotly just an inch from his skin.

He can’t remember what it’s like to be this close to someone, and it’s so impossibly good just to do this, stand against each other, share each others’ air.

Stiles’ hand slides slowly down his chest, just that, and it’s too much because he hasn’t been touched in _years_ , not like this. He hasn’t ever been touched like this by someone he’s really trusted. He doesn’t move, doesn’t turn his head away, and Stiles sighs, long and slow, against his skin.

“This ok?”

Derek can’t answer, can’t think, can’t _breathe_. Stiles’ scent is everywhere, his body a line of heat just a slow lean away, screaming want and _want_ and—

Stiles starts to draw back and Derek’s hand is at his nape in an instant, gripping hard, holding him in place.

“Hey,” Stiles says, notes of careful concern in his tone, and Derek realizes he hasn’t said anything, done anything, since Stiles first leaned in.

He should, he needs to say something. Say this is ok. Stiles is going tense against him, the want in his skin going sour with nerves and doubt. But Derek doesn’t trust his voice to escape in anything more than a whimper that will leave Stiles more worried, so instead he holds it in, buries the sound inside and forces himself to lean in, instead.

Stiles lets out a soft sigh when Derek ghosts their cheeks back together, his hand too tense on Stiles’ neck, whole body trembling from the effort of just barely giving in.

“You love me,” Stiles says, easy and pleased, and Derek marvels at how Stiles can manage to dig down into Derek’s soul like it’s nothing and pull out the exact thing he can’t begin to give voice to.

.-

“So, true love.”

It’s Scott who brings it up first, a month after Derek and Stiles step into a pack meeting amidst a fanfare of finallys and a hastily shredded sheet of looseleaf thrown into the air like confetti. It had taken weeks after that for Stiles to coax Derek into revealing his curse to the rest of the pack (“our lives are weird, man. Who knows when someone might decide to dive on your lips to create a distraction or make someone else jealous or just try to be funny? Better informed than dead off a bad joke, right?”)

Derek can’t help wondering, though, if Stiles hadn’t just been looking for some extra hands to help researching curses. He’s seen books of magical theory and aura cleansing tucked between Kira’s school books, knows that Stiles has Isaac looking into Old Magic across Europe. Stiles had even asked for Andrea’s number as though that’s something Derek _has_ , as though hearing the story from her lips will be any different than hearing it from Derek’s.

As though Derek hadn’t spent years looking into every possible solution in a vain effort to save Laura’s life.

So when Scott sidles up on the street one day and falls into step next to him, talking about true love, Derek cuts him a sideways look and waits for a dozen questions he has no answers to, suggestions for solutions long written off.

Instead Scott says, simple and easy:

“You know Stiles thinks about it all the time. How you’re the love of his life, man. How one day you’ll realize it back and you’ll know he’s the one who’s gonna break that spell.”

Derek lifts a hand without thinking, has it halfway to his lips before he catches himself and drops it. Scott’s expression, when Derek risks a glance his way, is unreadable.

“I can’t decide if you’re here to tell me to leave him alone or to go for it.”

Scott looks down, lips twisting wryly.

“I’m here to tell you I get it. Why you’re holding back.”

It’s the last thing Derek had expected. Scott, Stiles’ best friend, should be trying to keep Stiles safe at all costs. Scott, the pack’s biggest romantic, should be urging him to take a wild chance at true love.

He frowns, and Scott shrugs.

“I mean… how do you ever know something like that for sure? If you asked me when I was fifteen I would’ve said Allison was my soulmate, no doubt. And maybe she was. But now I can’t even imagine my life without Kira. I don’t know if one love’s ‘truer’ than the other, or if they both were, somehow. But I know both of them were real.”

He lets out a long breath then, scrubbing at his neck and waiting until Derek finds his eyes again before adding, earnest.

“And I think maybe the more you love someone, the less willing you’d be to risk it.”

It hits on everything Derek hasn’t been able to put words to, everything that’s been twisted together into an ugly _can’t_ inside him for so many years that the reasons have long lost meaning. It’s more than Derek would have expected from Scott, but maybe he should have.

Scott’s come a long way from the boy who would risk going out on a full moon for a date with the new girl, and Derek can see the starts of wisdom in him that only comes from long years of trials.

He cuts his gaze away, feeling strangely young next to the man six years his junior, and wonders how his own trials have left him so sorely un-tempered.

“I can’t exactly tell Stiles that I’m afraid there’s someone better for me out there.”

There’s a long, considering pause, and then: “You don’t _really_ think that though, do you?”

His heart lurches against the idea of it, of his life carrying on without Stiles. Without the warm curl of his fingers against Derek’s, the way he’ll lean in close and coo sarcastic comments like love confessions against his ear. Stiles, fiercely brave even when he’s shaking with fear, standing amongst a world of monsters and giving back as good as he gets.

Stiles, who had held him up when the entire rest of the world tries to push him down, who didn’t run when he found out what Derek was, who still looks at him like he’s _worth_ something and, even just for a few seconds, makes Derek believe it too.

“I can’t imagine it,” he says, and it costs something coming out, feels like slipping closer to an edge that will drop him into a heartbreak he’ll never manage to recover from. “But…”

“You’re not willing to risk it,” Scott repeats. When Derek looks back, he sees understanding there. “You’re a good guy, Derek. And you’re good for him. Whatever happens next. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

.-

“I don’t get what your issue is,” Stiles says, pushing the door open too hard. It slows as it slides, pattering off to a pitiful squeal before hitting the far wall.

_Stiles’ thumb running absently over his lip as he watches the couple across the café ducking in to trade grinning kisses. It’s a sickeningly perfect image, like something out of a painting, and Stiles looks wistful, a blush dusting his cheeks as he bites his lip, ducks his head toward his steaming cup._

Derek stalks past him into the loft, hears the door slide shut with a far more satisfying slam before Stiles is stalking after him toward the sunset-bright window.

“If you wanted to be _rational_ about this,” he hisses, dropping keys, phone, and hoodie with more ire than usual as he goes, “instead of falling into a pit of typical Derek angst, you could have just asked me. ‘Hey Stiles, are you interested in going off and making out with those other people?’ and I’d say ‘No, Derek,’ and we could have continued on with a perfectly pleasant afternoon.”

Derek’s teeth grit, hands fisting. Because Stiles _does_ want that. Maybe not with someone else, but he wants it. And Derek can’t give it to him, so where does that leave them?

“You shouldn’t have to—“ he starts, and Stiles stalks around to scowl at him, cutting in.

“I shouldn’t _what_? Be with the guy I want to be with? Make my own life decisions without you falling into broody alpha mode, trying to decide what’s best for me? Screw you.”

A rough noise twists out of Derek as Stiles starts to stalk back to the door, and then he’s reaching out, fisting at his shirt, holding him still while Stiles tugs once in frustration and then pushes into his grasp like he’s starving for contact.

“I need _you_ ,” Stiles hisses, words more anger than want, and he goes when Derek leads him backwards, shoves him back down onto the bed and straddles his hips. He feels shaky, outside himself as Stiles’ breath goes out of him, as his eyes dilate sharply at the first press into his already straining groin.

“Derek?”

“ _Quiet_.”

They’ve never done this. In two months together they’ve never done anything close to this, and Stiles deserves this. Stiles, who’s so goddamn patient, more patient than Derek ever would have expected from him at the start of all this. Stiles, who had flushed with want at the sight of another couple being so intimate as sharing a few brushed kisses in public, because that’s something Derek can never give him. But he can do this.

He keeps his hand pressed, fingers splayed, across Stiles’ chest. Feels the warmth of him through the fabric, his suddenly rabbiting heartbeat. Watches his own hand rise and fall fast as Stiles’ breaths start going sharp with nervous desire.

“Derek…” he says again. Confused, wanting, wary.

There’s a slice of bared skin between Stiles’ jeans and his t-shirt, revealing pale flesh with a single dark mole toward his hip, and a thick line of hair down his belly that trails tantalizingly toward his groin. He knuckled across the hair, rucking up the edge of Stiles’ shirt and trailing downward, watches Stiles’ hips undulate up to chase the contact. They both let out soft, pleased sounds as the movement grinds them together.

“I—“ Stiles stammers, all the anger in him long gone. “Are you… are we…”

Derek palms, almost curious, into the bulge in Stiles’ jeans. His hips cant again in answer, his mouth all parted pants, want-dark eyes going from Derek’s face to his hand and back again.

“You want this,” Derek says, and thinks, desperately, _you deserve this_.

He deserves so much more than this, but he’s stupid enough to want Derek and this, at least, Derek can do for him.

Stiles whines in assent and he smells so sweet now, each half-aborted roll of his hips releasing needy pheromones that have Derek aching to lean in and touch with so much more than his grinding palm. His arm, locked straight against Stiles’ chest, keeps him from giving in to the insane urge to duck down and _taste_.

He gets Stiles’ jeans open and then it’s just a bulge of damp blue boxers between Derek and that _scent_. Stiles says “ _Derek_ ” again and when his hips hitch this time Derek’s arm almost buckles, and then Stiles’ long fingers are clutching his forearm, steadying him.

“Hey, you good?”

He floats his gaze up, back down again, wordless. Presses his palm over Stiles’ clothed cock, savoring the ragged groan that tears free, and lifts his hand to lick a slow stripe, savoring the taste of Stiles on his own skin.

Stiles’ blunt nails bite into his arm and he lets out a hurt sound, before laughing.

“Keep that up and you’ll get me off without even touching me.”

“You _should_ have someone touching you,” Derek says, almost a snarl. There’s a boy in a coffee shop in his mind’s eye, being kissed so casually, like it’s nothing, like it happens a dozen times every day.

Stiles should have that.

But Stiles is splayed out under him, smelling like want and like love and everything Derek can’t hope to have, And then he’s pushing off Stiles, rolling away to lie beside him on the mattress. There’s a throb in his jeans and an ache in his heart and panic racing them both into a frenzied rhythm in his chest, and they stare up at the ceiling together, untouching.

Derek says “I can’t,” and it feels, sometimes, like the only thing he’s ever said.

Stiles swallows. Derek hears the heavy click of it echo out into the room for a long while before Stiles says “I know.”

The wide windows on the near side of the bed seem more appealing than the ceiling suddenly. Derek twists toward them, forces his voice not to die in his throat as he murmurs:

“You could… with other people. It wouldn’t have to mean anything.”

He smells the spike of something akin to seething frustration, but no interest, no hint of piquing want. The bed shifts as Stiles turns, curls in behind Derek and wraps an arm around his belly, and soothing over his heart. Forehead pressed into Derek’s nape, he murmurs “It would mean I wasn’t with you. I don’t need that, ok?”

“It’s not fair to—“

“ _Hey_ ,” His hand stops soothing, grip going firm. Palm pressing hard into Derek’s chest. “It’s nice of you to offer, ok? But I’m not interested. I’m interested in being here, whatever that means. Got it?”

There’s no lie in his heartbeat, and Derek slides a palm up to press over Stiles’ hand on his chest. The whole room smells of slow dissipating want and Stiles’ hips are carefully canted from his, a sign of the erection he’s still fighting to work down.

But there’s no lie in his heartbeat, and Derek tries to forget the image of Stiles, flushed and longing, as he watched a pair of strangers do something so simple that neither of them will ever have.

.-

“Hey,” Stiles says out of nowhere, pausing next to Derek as the pair work around each other in the quiet of Derek’s kitchen. “You’re not going to hurt me. You know that, right?”

He says it like it shouldn’t mean anything. Like it’s not a proven tenant of Derek’s existence that he hurts the people he loves.

He blinks away, back to the mess of ingredients slowly solidifying into an omelet in the pan.

Stiles curls behind him, sighs gently into his shoulder.

“God, I wish I could just make you see it.”

“See what?”

Derek’s nails have gone sharp on the spatula. He feels it straining against his hand.

He can’t look away when Stiles’ fingers close over them, weaving fearlessly between the claws and splintering plastic.

“That we’re perfect, Derek. There’s no reason to be scared, because we’re perfect.”

.-

They’re curled together on what Derek has started to think of as their couch, Derek leaning back against Stiles’ chest and watching Stiles play idly with his fingers, while a movie runs in the background.

Derek isn’t sure how he’s come to feel comfortable enough in Stiles’ space to let himself go boneless against him, to just lean back and let their bodies melt together. But Stiles seems to recognize every boundary Derek has without asking, noticing subtle tells and sparks of tension like he's been mapping Derek out in his mind for years. Readjusting in ways that make it almost impossible for Derek _not_ to relax, not to trust.

They can lie together as long as Stiles is behind him, as long as Derek’s mouth is in no danger of grazing across Stiles’ skin. Stiles can touch Derek as long as he’s prepared for it, and Derek can touch Stiles until he starts wanting too much, until Stiles starts smelling too sweet and Derek’s interest is shot by terrifying desire to taste Stiles all over.

All in all, it has been three months of what Stiles once described as “very PG rated coupley-ness,” or whatever the rating would be when they’ve both seen, smelled, _felt_ each others’ hardness too often, but no one’s mouth has come close to making contact with the other person’s skin.

“What are you thinking,” Stiles breathes against his nape, and Derek lets his head roll forward unthinkingly, baring a long stretch of skin that Stiles’ next breath falls, shaky, over.

“Oh? I… are you—”

Derek licks his lips, nerves spiking at the thought of _lips_ and _skin_.

“Don’t—“

“Yeah,” Stiles cuts in, want-rough and unworried, and then noses, slow and deliberate, along the side of Derek’s neck.

His mouth is _right there_ and Derek shudders because they haven’t done that either, because they’ve barely done anything in the grand scheme of things, in the months they’ve ben together. Nothing more than skimming hands and long hugs and lying curled against each other. Derek doesn’t know what might happen if they do this, but the sound he lets out as Stiles drags a hand up his thigh to press, warm and sure, into his belly, isn’t one of fear.

Stiles’ breath goes sharp and then he’s nosing back behind Derek’s ear quickly, with intent, fast drags like kisses, and Derek groans as the friction and breath sets his skin thrilling hot.

“Is this ok,” Stiles murmurs. “Is this—“

He grabs for Stiles’ hand on his belly, unthinking, drags it so his shirt rucks up, so that those long fingers are splayed out against his bare skin.

“ _Fuck_ , Derek,” Stiles breathes, hips hitching up so that Derek can feel the hardness there, and Stiles’ hand is dragging down lower, fingers grazing under the edge of his jeans. “ _Fuck_.” The button drags open and Stiles’ hand is sliding under, and Derek didn’t know it could feel like this, another hand just barely on him, and Stiles is breathing “Is this, can I“ like it’s even a question, and Derek’s reaching back to grip Stiles’ hip and tug him closer, wanting that hardness, wanting Stiles’ want.

He’s never had this, never had anything remotely like this, and he’s already shaking while Stiles shoves at his jeans and groans “You’ve gotta stop for a second so I can—“

Derek stops himself from grinding back, from pressing as close to Stiles as he can, for just long enough to let Stiles drag his jeans down a few inches, for his cock to spring free, stiff and aching and already so close to the edge from almost nothing.

“Oh god,” Stiles breathes, and “You’re beautiful.” And Derek isn’t sure what to do with that, so he reaches back and fumbles for the button of Stiles’ jeans without turning, dragging the zipper down with deft fingers and helping shimmy them down Stiles’ thighs and then—

Everything falls away but sweet friction, Stiles’ hand wrapping around him while he presses back, gripping at Stiles’ thigh, his knee, needing something to ground him as he surrenders to the sensation of riding slowly higher, closer to the edge with every push of Stiles’ hips, every drag of his hand. Stiles guiding him, gripping him, surrounding him and breathing into his ear, his mouth so close and—

“Hey, shh, you’re ok.”

Derek’s whole body is quaking, breaths coming out fast and shallow and offering no relief to his screaming lungs. He’s so hard it hurts, Stiles’ hand slick with precome, but a familiar panic is racing it again for climax, the urge to run before he ruins this, before he goes stupid with orgasm and turns to kiss Stiles when he’s too far gone to trust himself.

It’s been months of this, of maybe-almost and then Derek’s panic pushing him to run, and he hates everything in him that’s not letting him just _have_ this.

Stiles’ hips are slowing to slight, uncontrolled hitches, and he’s saying “We can stop” into Derek’s ear.

It’s ridiculous how three simple words manage to quell down the panic in Derek’s chest, let him drag in his first real breath in what feels like minutes.

He slides his hand up Stiles’ thigh, wanting to see him, not trusting himself to turn.

“I want you.” He’s shocked at how ragged his voice sounds, low and wrecked. Stiles’ laughter huffs against his shoulder.

“I know, man. I can tell. We can still stop.”

_They can stop._

It shouldn’t feel like this, like a _revelation,_ to hear the words spoken outright.

But Derek has had sex with two people in his life and with neither of them had stopping seemed like even the vaguest possibility.

Stiles is different, though. He always has been. He’s never pushed Derek, not in any way he can’t handle. He’s stayed every time Derek has retreated, let him lead the pace without complaint. He’s let them stop when he was plainly, achingly hard, has hugged away the worst of Derek’s shudders before excusing himself to cool down or jerk off in the semi-privacy of a nearby bathroom.

No matter what, they can stop. Stiles will let them stop.

And it’s such a stupid thing to make Derek’s nerves settle. Derek, with the strength to stop any human who ever tried to push him with ease. But somehow it does. Derek hasn’t ever felt so safe, so _ready_ , as he does in this moment.

“Ok,” he says, hearing the awe hanging in his own tone. And he wraps his hand carefully around Stiles’, still wrapped loosely around his straining cock, and leads him in a slow tug.

“Oh, thank god,” Stiles says, and rocks his hips forward in earnest.

.-

The sound of Stiles’ voice, low and heated, wakes him from a restless sleep. He doesn’t move, curled onto the couch with an afghan tucked over him in a way it definitely hadn’t been when he’d drifted off, and he’s surprised at the lack of panic he feels at the thought of Stiles coming over to him while he’s sleeping, leaning close to him, touching him, when Derek can’t do anything to check his own responses.

 _Trust_ , Derek thinks, warmth curling low in his belly.

The feeling dies fast when he registers the misery bleeding into Stiles’ scent, the harsh breath he draws in before hissing: “I just… I don’t get how you didn’t know. That’s your _thing_ , right? Shouldn’t you have been able to tell? Shouldn’t you have been able to _do_ something?”

He knows it’s Lydia on the other end before he hears her tired sigh. Knows it from the way dawn light’s barely filtering through the loft, far too early for Stiles to be calling anyone on their side of the country. He knows it from the way Stiles’ voice is open and wounded and honest in a way he only lets himself get around a select few people.

He’s not expecting it when she says, gentle, apologetic: “Banshees sense _death_ , Stiles. Not killers.”

Derek curls into the warmth of the afghan and tries to focus on the sure beat of Stiles’ heart, blocking out the words and the irrational urge to kiss into his own skin, or count the people his kiss has killed.

.-

“Kiss me,” Stiles breathes, on the edge of an orgasm, and doesn’t try to hold on when Derek bolts out of his grip and spins to stare at him, unblinking, from the opposite side of the bed. He does flop down onto his back though, his body a long, inviting line in a way Derek rarely gets to see it, sex between them strictly handled with Stiles’ hand tight and sweet around Derek’s dick, Derek’s back pressed to Stiles’ front.

It’s enough of a tease to feel Stiles without being able to run his hands (his _mouth_ ) all over him, but being able to see him like this, the broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow hips that look like they’re built for Derek’s hands to grip them, line of dark hair leading down to where his cock’s still jutting up proudly, lean and long and so ready to be buried inside Derek’s fists or his ass or his—

They don’t do that. They can’t do that.

He drags his gaze up and catches Stiles blinking away from his own perusal, his throat clearing.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says, and Derek grimaces.

“Yes, you did.”

Stiles licks his lips, slow and distracting.

“I… yeah, I did.”

Derek’s on his feet a second later, erection long-wilted, grabbing his jeans and dragging them back on while Stiles pushes himself up slow, staring after him.

“Where are you going?”

Derek can’t find his shirt. Turns, eyes scanning fast along the floor, before thinking _fuck it_ and making for the closet to drag out a new one.

“Hey, no. We need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Stiles. You know what this is, you know what the rules are.”

“I _know_.” Stiles is on his feet now, padding naked across the floor, and Derek stares blankly into his closet before shaking himself and pulling out the first shirt he sees. “Hey, Derek, I know. And I shouldn’t have said that, but listen.”

“I can’t.” The shirt’s on before he realizes it’s Stiles’, not his own. Too tight at the waist but comfortable at the shoulders and smelling so much of Stiles he’s clawing it off and tossing it away almost as fast as he gets it on.

“Look, I wouldn’t have ever said it, I wasn’t _planning_ on ever saying it. You know I’m fine with how things are but… Derek, you need to know that I _want_ you to kiss me.”

Stiles’ scent is everywhere in the closet, half his clothes here from all the nights he’s spent sleeping in Derek’s bed while Derek, himself, took the couch. Loving the illusion of sleeping together even if that’s all it could be, even if there’s no way Derek would let himself lie, unconscious and out of control, mere inches from Stiles’ skin.

“You have a death wish?” he snarls back, grabbing an old Henley and dragging it on, feeling the seams strain as he pulls it down too sharp.

“ _No_ , you idiot. You’re the love of my life.”

Derek freezes, halfway out of the closet, with Stiles flushed, naked, and fearless in front of him.

“Derek, I get why you won’t, and I wouldn’t push you. I wouldn’t put you in the position, but I need you to know that I’m not afraid, alright? You’re my soulmate, my… _true love_. Whatever the hell you want to call it. There’s never going to be anything that tops what we have right here. I believe that.” He’s blushing brightly now but not shrinking, fierce and beautiful and braver than Derek deserves. “And yeah, I want to kiss you. I’m always going to want to kiss you. I’d risk it in a heartbeat if you wanted to, because we’re _it_ , man. And it kills me that you won’t let me fix this for you.” He shakes his head. His voice has gone tight. “I’m not scared, ok, because it’s not even a risk at all.”

Laura used to love romantic movies, the ones where the third act saw love confessions shouted out amidst sweeping soundtracks, followed by passionate kisses in the rain.

Stiles’ words ring out loud in the loft before tapering to a dull silence.

Derek’s hand curls tighter against the closet door, claws cutting in.

“I _can’t_ ,” he says again, sounding painfully small in his own ears in the wake of Stiles’ conviction.

For the first time in months, when Stiles moves toward him, Derek flinches. It makes Stiles’ eyes wall, his scent burn bitter and wounded.

“I’m not gonna…” Stiles starts, chokes off, and for the first time he seems aware of his own nakedness, arms crossing over his chest.

Derek grits his teeth. The door splinters.

Because he can trust Stiles with every scarred scrap of himself: with his body, with his heart. But he can’t trust Stiles with the most important thing Derek has: with _Stiles_.

This, right here, has proven that.

“You should go,” he says, and Stiles nods, mouth going tight.

He turns away before the sting of salt hits the air.


End file.
